Houses are not manufactured according to industrial principles, i.e. in long series and with integrated solutions, and are therefore neither good nor inexpensive but, at best, only good.
It is true that small houses of prefabricated construction are manufactured but this is done with very limited sizes of the climate shell. For instance, walls can only with difficulty be made longer than up to the double length as compared to the wall height, i.e. 4,8 m. In the case of greater lengths, measures have to be taken to compensate the wall's own stability in the longitudinal direction.
The rest of the climate shell today is constructed as cross segments of the longitudinal direction of the house and in any case not with stability being possible in two directions.
The present invention in a first aspect relates to a house building module having a wall portion and a foundation portion and to a method of manufacturing such a module as well as to a method in manufacturing a house using such a module.
Traditional house building technique is usually based on construction in situ. This is often complicated and costly. In certain respects, the house building technique has been aimed at utilizing the rationalization advantages provided by the use of prefabricated elements, thus cutting down on building time and cost. Said prefabricated elements, however, generally only involved separate units of the building, such as wall elements.
An important aspect when building a house is the connection of its walls with the foundation. Also in this case, prefabrication principles could be applied to a greater extent. Certain attempts to that effect have been made. Other important aspects when applying the module principle within the house building technique is the connection of the walls to roof portions as well as how to connect the modules to each other, and their connection to other elements of the house, such as structural beams.
EP-0 016 478 discloses a prefabricated unit including a wall portion as well as a base portion. The construction is heavy and unwieldy in that it constitutes a cast-solid concrete element, and in several ways is difficult to use in rational construction.
Further, from SE-415 989 there is previously known a base element in the shape of an inverted T. The base element, however, does not include the wall itself but only constitutes its base portion. It therefore has the disadvantages related to traditional building technique. In the magazine Byggforskning No. 3/96, an article on pages 3-5 describes a new way of thinking as regards the use of modules within the house building technique. Among others, the possibilities of forming walls consisting of polystyrene and sheet profiles joined to the foundation walls by casting are discussed. However, in said article there is no further information as to how this could be implemented in the form of a prefabricated module.
The object of the present invention is to solve the problem of providing a practically applicable modular system for building houses which is favourable from the economic point of view and, more particularly, to solve the problems associated with the connection of house walls with the foundation of the house in an optimal manner in the form of a module while avoiding the disadvantages of prior attempts within the art.
According to the invention the above problems are solved by a house building module and methods of manufacturing such a module presented with special features and special measures.
Through the invented module system possibilities are provided of rationally using prefabricated elements in house building owing to the system including modules which integrate wall portions with foundation portions.
Through the invented house building module where the wall portion is integratedly connected to the foundation portion, any thermal bridge between the wall and the foundation is eliminated in that there is uninterrupted insulation between them, and owing to the use of several different materials, it is possible to reduce the weight of the module, thereby facilitating transport and enabling the choice of material for the wall portion and the foundation portion respectively to be optimized for the respective function. Since it is possible to keep the weight low, larger element surfaces can be produced. Further, it can be done in a rational way. This, in turn, speeds up the building process. In addition, the load-bearing structure can be made weaker.
Preferably, the foundation portion is given a higher specific weight than the wall portion, which is an important aspect as regards reducing the total weight and facilitating transport.
The three materials, in another preferred embodiment, are metal, cellular plastic and concrete, which materials when suitably combined in the module are appropriate for achieving the low weight and the rational manufacture and handling.
The measures disclosed enable the house building module according to the invention with wall and foundation portion to be manufactured quickly and an appropriate combination of materials for the various parts as well as an effective interconnection thereof to be achieved.
The method disclosed utilizes the advantages provided by the house building module according to the invention in the production of houses. Thus, the module is particularly suited to be prefabricated. Thanks to the combination of materials, which makes it possible to have a wall portion with lower density than the foundation portion, there is provided appropriate transportation of the modules in that they can be in an upright position.
The claims dependent on the respective independent claims define advantageous embodiments of the invention.
Through a combination of materials and an interconnection solution previously not employed, the present invention makes it possible to industrially manufacture and to transport units which make better use of both the volume and the weight capacity of the transport vehicles and which simplify the building process.
The material comprises cellular plastic, concrete and sheet profiles. The sheet profiles have a flange which fits into grooves in the cellular plastic. The flanges are thereby prevented from breaking since the cellular plastic can absorb high dynamic pressures.
The U-sections on either side of the cellular plastic do not reach each other's flanges and therefore there will be no so called thermal bridge in the climate shell elements. If required, the sheet profiles are interconnected by a steel band (used within the packaging industry) the sectional area of which in the form of a thermal bridge is completely negligible (5 mm.sup.2 per wall square meter)
The concrete adheres very well to cellular plastic and to advantage may therefore be joined to the cellular plastic by casting in the longitudinal direction of the elements while the U-sections extending transversely to the elements will be embedded and will thus provide stability in this direction.
No mould has to be produced when casting since the materials included in the construction provide the very mould. This is of great economic and practical importance in the manufacture, especially in the manufacture on the construction site.